The sheriff spread the story across his desk. It took up the entire front page of the Sunday magazine, and two more pages inside. “You’ve made quite a sensation, Miss Kopp. I don’t recall a reporter from Atlanta visiting us here in Hackensack.”
“That’s because he was never here!” She turned the paper around and ran her finger down the lines of type. “He copied most of this from other papers. There’s a long bit about the Kaufman case, and quite a lot about von Matthesius, all pulled from other reports. And he fabricated all the quotes himself.” She pointed to a line at the end of the story from a New York police officer who, the reporter claimed, witnessed her capture of a fugitive at a Brooklyn subway station last year: “Gee! I seen some A1 strong-armed performers in my time, but that chicken cop’s got somethin’ on all of ’em!”
The sheriff was a man who valued dignity and sobriety above all else, so it took some effort to hide his amusement. “Are you quite sure he made that up?”
“Oh, please don’t tell me that women officers are being called ‘chicken cops’ behind our backs.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “If they are, I’m not going to be the one to tell you. How’d you get along in Catskill?”
“Poorly,” Constance said. “Please don’t remind me again that the only reason you hired a woman was to get the female population in line. Whatever magical powers I possess are wasted on the Davises. Isn’t there something else we can do for her?”
“Well, I don’t know what it will mean for Miss Davis, but the case against Anthony Leo is falling apart. If she won’t testify against him, then it’s nearly impossible to make a case that he took her forcibly over state lines. And thanks to your efforts, the landlord has told John Courter that he hasn’t anything useful to say in court about men sneaking in and out of the place. He won’t be testifying.”
“But that has to be good news for Minnie, doesn’t it? If Anthony Leo’s to be released, surely she will be, too.”
“We’ll know in another week or so. He’s going before the judge and you’re to bring Minnie back from Trenton for the day. They might dispense with her case at the same time, I don’t know.” The sheriff was sorting through the morning’s mail on his desk. He held out a handwritten note to her.
“It’s Carrie Hart. She was just here looking for you. She says it concerns Fleurette.”
44
THE NOTE INSTRUCTED Constance to meet Carrie at the library if she returned within the hour. Constance hurried back downtown in the direction she’d just gone, but stopped short as she pushed through the library’s double doors.
Carrie was sitting at a table with Norma, their heads bent over a newspaper.
The shock of seeing Norma out on her own in public was beginning to wear off, but she couldn’t guess as to how Norma managed to keep turning up at the side of Constance’s professional acquaintances. Had she ever introduced Carrie and Norma? Surely not. She rushed over, bewildered, and sat across from them.
“What’s this about Fleurette?” she whispered. “I wish you wouldn’t scare me like that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that your sister’s gone missing?” Carrie asked.
“She isn’t missing,” Constance hissed, although she could see from their pitying expressions that her version of events held no interest. To Norma she added, “I can’t seem to turn around without you showing up with another hare-brained scheme. What’s the matter with you?”
Norma spoke with a note of grim triumph. “She didn’t go off with May Ward.”
“That’s nonsense,” Constance said. “Of course she did. We have postcards from her! Freeman Bernstein told us she joined the company.”
“Look.” Norma pushed the newspaper across the table.
“Why are you reading the Scranton Times?” But then Constance saw the notice about May Ward’s show. The entire cast was listed. There were eight Dresden Dolls, and Fleurette was not among them.
It unsettled her, but she didn’t want to admit it. “What does this tell us?”
Norma snorted. “I don’t know why you have to be so thick-headed. She isn’t there. If she ever was with the troupe, she’s run off.”
“Or she’s been kidnapped,” Carrie put in, a little too eagerly. “Norma told me about the hidden messages in the postcards.”
“She hasn’t been kidnapped,” Constance said crossly. “Norma, I can’t believe you’d involve Carrie in this nonsense. Of course there aren’t hidden messages in the postcards.”
“We just haven’t found them yet,” Norma said.
“Oh, you mustn’t blame her,” Carrie said. “I was here a few days ago to work on a story, and I overheard Norma asking after the Pennsylvania papers. She gave her name to the librarian and I introduced myself. I’ve never met the other Kopps!”
“What a shame,” Constance mumbled.
“Well, they don’t take the smaller papers here,” Carrie continued, “but of course, we take everything at my office. I told her to meet me here this morning and I’d have exactly what she’s looking for. And here it is! Now, where do you suppose Fleurette has gone?”
“Harrisburg,” said Constance. “It says right here that Harrisburg is the next stop on the tour, and I have every reason to think she’s with them. There could be any number of reasons why she isn’t listed with the company. Maybe she’s an understudy. She said she hadn’t learned all the steps yet.”
“She didn’t tell us she was an understudy,” Norma said.
“She might not have wanted to. Or maybe the paper had an old notice, printed before Fleurette joined.”
Carrie and Norma exchanged a maddeningly conspiratorial look. “That isn’t all we know,” Norma said, regally.
Constance waited, although her outrage was beginning to simmer over. At war inside of her were twin emotions: fury at Norma, and terror over the idea that Fleurette really had disappeared.
Carrie leaned across the table to deliver the news. “This Freeman Bernstein. Norma was right. She did remember him from the papers. He’s the one who ran that pleasure resort up at 110th Street a few years ago. Did you ever see it? It was right on Fifth Avenue.”
“I don’t go in for pleasure resorts,” Norma said, as if anyone needed to be reminded of that, “but I did read about this one. Carrie found it in her archives.”
“It was called Midway Park,” Carrie continued. “Mr. Bernstein meant it to be a little Coney Island right in the city. Female trapeze artists, calcium lights blazing all night, a merry-go-round, and a brass band—you can imagine the way the neighbors complained, but he had a few thousand people through there every night. Anyway, he was putting all these little buildings up, and one of them fell over in a storm and hurt a few people. That was enough to get it closed down. A few months later, he formed a new corporation under a new name and went right on to the next venture.”